In my response to the World Court article I started thinking about what
could really be done. I have a proposal:
* complete opening of .com.au to all names. The time has now passed to even
pretend common words are restricted.
* a new domain space (perhaps firm.au?) which embodies the goal of .com.au.
All Australian businesses are allocated space within this domain strictly in
accordance with their business name.
- State registered businesses are given businessname.nsw.firm.au
- Companies, etc are given companyname.firm.au
There is no chance of collision.
* Domain registration is free and automatic. Yes!
* The government would meet the cost of running the registrar. I would
imagine this could be kept low given the lack of disputes, no accounts and
links to existing government databases. I'd make a stab at the cost of under
a dollar per name, given that Network Associates (VeriSign) charges about $5
per .com name in the US and makes a large fortune.
* It must be tied in closely with the Department of Fair Trading (or whoever
registers business names in each state) and the Aust Securities Commission
(companies), and other relevant bodies. Also ties would need to be made to
information from the WhitePages. But isn't all that publicly owned
information already?
* The government gets big political kudos. "Every business in Australia is
being equipped for the technology age.". "We are launching the new
information age for everyone." etc.
* More costly but very doable: every domain gets a free page served out of a
database with basic business information. Name, address, phone, business
type. Perhaps just that collected by ASC or the department registering
business names. Perhaps a little more if information can be easily collected
at the time of business registration.
* Of course, each business has the option to point the domain (including the
subdomains such as www.) to any servers. They would not create new web pages
in the majority of circumstances but simply link into their existing
(www.business.com.au or whatever) site. Other subdomains (ftp., mail., etc.
could be available free or at a small charge).
* It becomes easy for the average user to understand that typing:
maggies-thai.nsw.firm.au
gets you the nice thai restaurant down the end of the street that you can't
remember the phone/address/whatever of. Perhaps they have a home delivery
web page, but at the least you know you'll get their registered business
address and maybe phone.
* More costly again, this concept could be extended to a .name.au domain
space for individuals. I haven't even begun to think about the problems this
would entail. ari.maniatis.darghan.glebe.nsw.name.au ?????
I certainly would not entrust the creation of such a system to private
enterprise (even if there was money in it). There are reasons we have
governments to create useful infrastructure, where profit is secondary to
utility. I fear that the recent ICANN domains are more about profit
possibility than utility.
We certainly need faster action by AuDa than this 12 month committee
decision making process...
My $0.03. Flame away.
Ari Maniatis
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ish group pty ltd
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